


Flugplates

by cunzy4



Series: Font Skeleton Hell [3]
Category: Undertale (Video Game), Villainous (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Handplates, I mean it's handplates so what do you expect, Steven Universe References, bit of a crack fic, black hat plus flug equals gaster, so if you don't know any of those then go away, tw mention of child torture, villainous/undertale crossover, wrote this a long time ago but didn't publish it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-03-21 12:15:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13740675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cunzy4/pseuds/cunzy4
Summary: This fic answers the question that literally no one asked: what if Dr. Gaster was secretly the fusion of Black Hat and Dr. Flug?If you haven't seen Villainous, go and do so this minute because it's amazing. Uses the fusion concept from Steven Universe, but it's pretty easy to follow even if you don't know what I'm talking about.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I randomly decided to look at this after ignoring it for months, and decided to publish it for no good reason. Enjoy this bit of random nonsense that came from a stupid conversation between Fazz and me (like all of my ideas.)

“Are you feeling all right, my friend?” Asgore asked with concern. “You’ve hardly touched your tea.”

Gaster barely glanced at Asgore before returning his gaze to his damaged hands. “I’m perfectly fine, Your Majesty. Just… a headache, is all.” His magic hands signed quickly as he spoke.

It wasn’t even a lie, technically. Gaster’s head was throbbing with the telltale signs of an imminent separation. Inwardly, he cursed the less-willing half of this pairing for complicating matters so frequently.

Claiming his head was bothering him, he excused himself from Asgore’s company and quickly returned to his lab. 1-S and 2-P watched him apprehensively as he approached their cell, but he swept past their door without even looking their way.

Shaking with the effort of holding his disparate halves together, Gaster lurched into a seldom-used storage room and locked himself in. He stumbled as his form began to lose cohesion, and with a bright flash, Gaster was two people.

The taller of the pair landed on his feet, adjusting his monocle irritably as the other half of Gaster collapsed onto the floor.

“Honestly, Flug, why must you make everything so difficult?” Black Hat hissed, glaring disdainfully at the figure cowering on the bare concrete. He was covering the scarred flesh on what remained of his face with both hands, shaking with fear and panic.

“I- I’m sorry, I- I tried! I c-can’t keep it up for s-so long!” Flug whimpered. “P-please, I’ll do b-better- AUGH!”

He cut off with a scream of pain as Black Hat’s foot connected with his ribs.  He abandoned his attempt to cover his face, curling in a ball with his arms around his knees as he tried to shield himself from Black Hat’s vindictive kicks.

“You- useless- waste- of- oxygen!” Black Hat punctuated each kick with a shout. Flug drowned him out with his screams and incoherent pleas, but Black Hat didn’t let up.

Down the hall, two small skeletons turned their heads curiously.

“do you hear something, bro?” one of them asked.

“I DON’T KNOW…” the other one said slowly. “THERE’S NO ONE ELSE DOWN HERE, RIGHT?”

The first one shrugged. “guess it’s nothing.”

Cuddling up together, they both leaned against the wall and went back to sleep.

* * *

 

Flug was a bleeding, sobbing mess by the time Black Hat got bored of kicking him. Several of the scars on his face had torn open once again, leaving him even further disfigured.

“I’m sick of you,” Black hat snapped. Sneering at the cowering scientist, he unlocked the door and swept disdainfully out of the room. Flug heard the lock click behind him.

Some hours later, Black Hat returned. Flug was curled up in the corner, hiding his face again with a discarded Glamburger wrapper. He whimpered when he heard the telltale footsteps, then a moment later he was lifted off the ground by his collar.

“Fuse. Now,” Black Hat ordered.

Flug clawed at the hand around his neck, gasping for breath. “No- please- I can’t!” he begged. “Don’t- don’t make me-”

He choked as Black Hat slammed him against the wall with one hand. “YOU DON’T HAVE A CHOICE!” Black Hat roared, his face becoming a demonic visage of nightmares.

Flug continued to struggle for an instant, then fell still. He hung limply against the wall as he acknowledged the truth in Black Hat’s words. He no longer had any control over his life. His only purpose was to be the non-dominant half of another personality, useful only for providing knowledge and staying out of the way of the other consciousness.

Construing Flug’s silence for surrender, Black Hat leaned uncomfortably close… then even closer. In another flash of light, Doctor W.D. Gaster had returned.

Flug felt his mind subsumed by the other, his very existence pushed to the bottom of their shared consciousness. Dimly, he recognized that their pairing was barely functional, which would force another separation within a matter of days. Black Hat and Flug’s souls were far from compatible. More often than not, this led to odd anomalies in Gaster’s already unstable personality.

Gaster didn’t care. All that mattered was that he was once again whole and prepared to work some evil science. He straightened his lab coat, brusquely striding out of the storage room. Perhaps there would still be time to perform some experiments today.

 

* * *

 

Gaster had been holding himself together for too long.

2-P was on the table today. Gaster studiously ignored both the usual pleas for mercy and his own pounding headache. His so-called conscience had been troubling him more than usual today, as his two halves continued their unequal war inside his SOUL. He could beat down that weak but persistent part of his joint psyche that screamed at him constantly that this was _wrong, wrong WRONG_ but he could never silence it completely. And today, with the pounding bone-deep ache that warned him that his incompatible halves were about to reject each other once again, he simply didn’t have the strength to force Flug to be quiet.

Unfortunately, 2-P seemed to notice his discomfort. “IS EVERYTHING ALRIGHT?” he asked, concerned. “ARE YOU FEELING UNWELL? DO YOU NEED ME TO HEAL YOU?”

Gaster paused in his preparations, staring at 2-P as though he were an alien creature. To be here, strapped to an operating table, about to endure unimaginable agony, and still offer kindness to his tormentor? Gaster would never understand 2-P.

At least, part of him wouldn’t.

“Be silent,” he snapped, turning back to his workbench and picking up a drill. 2-P flinched as it whined to life, but kept looking at Gaster with those piercing eyes, as though he could see through all of Gaster’s defenses.

Avoiding eye contact with 2-P, Gaster positioned the drill between two of the vertebrae in his neck. The drill bit was a millimeter from the bone, but Gaster hesitated. Under the pretext of fiddling with the drill’s controls, he drew back. 2-P still stared at him with those plaintive eyes, those _eyes_ that he suddenly couldn’t stand to look at.

Gaster turned back to the workbench, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to find his resolve. Ordinarily he wouldn’t have allowed himself to work on any of his more ethically questionable experiments when he was in this unstable of a state, but he was behind schedule and had no choice.

 _No choice…_ he told himself that so frequently. He couldn’t let himself believe anything else.

Gritting his teeth, he turned back to the frightened 2-P and started the drill once again. With shaking hands, he held the drill to 2-P’s neck…

And flinched away again, dropping the drill and clutching at his head with both hands. He stumbled back, knocking over his workbench with a horrendous clatter.

“WHAT’S WRONG?” 2-P cried, struggling to escape the restraints in an attempt to rush to Gaster’s aid.

“Augh!” Gaster hissed, trying to block out the voices, both external and internal. “Why do you _care?_ Just SHUT UP!”

Before 2-P could respond, Gaster answered himself. “I- I can’t! You can’t do this!”

“Stop it! STOP IT!” Gaster shrieked. 2-P watched, speechless in utter shock, as Gaster vanished in a flash of light. In his place stood a tall man in a black hat, and a cowering man with a tattered lab coat and a paper bag over his head.

“You fool,” the tall man snarled. “Now look what you’ve done!”

“I-I’m sorry!” the other one sniveled. “I c-couldn’t help it!”

“Honestly, is there no end to your uselessness?” A tendril of shadows originating from the tall man seemed to slide across the floor, lifting up the other one and slamming him against the wall. The man wearing the bag cried out in pain, struggling to get away as he was thrown against the wall again and again.

“STOP!” 2-P shouted from the table. “YOU’RE HURTING HIM!”

The tall man shot a glare at 2-P, snorting disdainfully. “I suppose the cat’s out of the bag now, unlike you,” he sneered at his counterpart.

“W-WHAT’S GOING ON?” 2-P demanded, a quiver in his voice.

“Ugh,” the tall man scoffed. “I don’t have time to explain to you useless creatures. And I’m too tired to fuse again, so it looks like you’ll be spending some quality time together.” As he spoke, another shadowy tendril released 2-P from the table and lifted him by his neck. Carrying them both behind him, the tall man swept out of the room and back towards the cell.

1-S looked up in confusion when he heard the footsteps returning far too soon, then his eyes widened in fear when he saw two strangers with his brother instead of Him. Before he could react, the beams deactivated and his brother was dumped into the cell along with one of the strangers. The other man reactivated the beams without a word, sweeping out of sight down the hall.

2-P immediately tackled his brother in a hug, pushing him into the corner to shield him from any potential actions the stranger in their cell might take. They both crouched near the bench, holding each other protectively, as they watched the other man sink to the floor in the opposite corner. He wrapped his arms around his knees, hiding his bagged face and making quiet sobbing noises.

“what is this?” 1-S whispered. “who’s that?”

“I DON’T KNOW,” 2-P responded. “ _HE_ WAS ABOUT TO DRILL ME, BUT… HE STOPPED, AND STARTED SHAKING, AND THEN… HE SPLIT INTO TWO PEOPLE.”

“…what?” 1-S said incredulously. 2-P just shrugged.

The two skeletons stared at him for several minutes, but he made no move to get up. Hesitantly, 2-P let go of his brother and made to stand up. 1-S grabbed his wrist, yanking him back.

“what are you doing?” he hissed. “don’t get close to him!”

“I THINK HE’S HURT!” 2-P protested, as quietly as he was able.

“so what? we can’t trust him! we can’t trust _anyone!”_

2-P knelt back down, giving his brother a gentle but determined stare. “IT DOESN’T MATTER,” he said softly. “IF HE NEEDS HELP, I’M GOING TO HELP HIM NO MATTER WHAT.”

“bro, no…” 1-S protested, but 2-P was already crouching next to the stranger.

“EXCUSE ME,” he said politely. The stranger flinched away with a whimper.

“I’M NOT GOING TO HURT YOU,” 2-P assured. “I JUST WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU'RE CALLED.”

The man peeked at him, tears swimming in his goggles. “I- I’m Doctor Flug.”

“IT’S NICE TO MEET YOU,” 2-P said politely. Flug winced as though he had been struck.

2-P cocked his head. “ARE YOU HURT?” he asked, his voice full of concern. “DO YOU NEED ME TO HEAL YOU?”

Flug shrunk into the corner, his goggles filling with tears beneath the paper bag. “No…” he whispered. “D-don’t touch me. I don’t d-deserve your kindness.”

“DON’T SAY THAT,” 2-P implored. “IF YOU NEED HELP, THEN I SHOULD-“

“I said _no_!” Flug shouted. 2-P pulled back, surprised. 1-S stood up, prepared to rush to his brother’s defense.

Flug stared at him for a moment, then seemed to collapse back in on himself. “Y-you shouldn’t be nice to me,” he whimpered, his voice quiet again. “Especially you two. After everything- everything we’ve done- _I’ve_ done…”

1-S was standing next to his brother now, pulling him back a step. “tell us who you are,” he said in his best attempt at an authoritative voice. He couldn’t quite hide the plaintive tone behind the words, the deep resignation of the fact that no matter how forcefully he spoke, he had no power over the situation.

Flug sniffed. “I’m- I’m Doctor Gaster. Half of him, anyway.” He looked back up at the boys. “Oh… I guess you don’t know his name. He’s- we’re- the ones who created you and keep you trapped down here…”

“i knew it,” 1-S muttered. Flug just looked at the floor.

“BUT- WHO IS THE OTHER MAN?”

Flug gulped. “His name is Black Hat. This whole situation- us becoming Doctor Gaster, creating you and all of these experiments, it was all his idea. I- I tried to- to stop him-“

At that, Flug burst into tears again. “I’m so- so sorry!” he sobbed, gasping for breath. “I couldn’t s-stop him! I couldn’t save you! I tried- I tried so hard- but I was never strong enough to- to do _anything-_ “

2-P knelt next to Flug, frowning sympathetically. “BUT IT WASN’T YOU, RIGHT? YOU SAID IT WAS HIM.”

“W-when we fuse, we’re the s-same person,” Flug explained shakily. “It was _me-_ I remember doing all those- those horrible things to you- I’m sorry, I just- I’m so sorry!” With that, he broke down in sobs and incoherent apologies, burying his head in his knees.

1-S and 2-P exchanged a loaded glance. 1-S shook his head slightly, but 2-P reached out and gently rested a skeletal hand on Flug’s knee.

Flug jerked away, looking up in surprise to see 2-P’s eyes glowing a gentle orange. He was smiling softly.

“I’M SO GLAD TO MEET YOU,” he said. “I ALWAYS KNEW THERE WAS GOOD IN HIM, AND I WAS RIGHT, BECAUSE IT’S YOU. I COULD TELL THERE WAS PART OF HIM THAT DIDN’T WANT TO HURT US, AND IT’S ALL RIGHT THAT YOU WEREN’T STRONG ENOUGH TO HOLD HIM BACK. BECAUSE WE AREN’T, EITHER. SO… I FORGIVE YOU.”

Flug stared at 2-P in shocked silence. His paper bag was almost completely soaked through. Before he could respond, the beams deactivated again. All three of them jumped in surprise as Black Hat appeared in the doorway.

“Come along, you useless idiot,” he snapped. “We’ve got work to do.”

Flug yelped as a tendril of shadow wrapped around his ankle, dragging him out from between the boys and out of the room. Without another word exchanged, Black Hat reactivated the beams and vanished down the hall, Flug sliding along the floor behind him.

1-S and 2-P sat in silence for several long moments.

“bro?” 1-S finally said.

“YES, BROTHER?” 2-P responded, pulling him into a hug on the bench.

“you’re so cool.”

2-P smiled. “I KNOW.”

* * *

Flug struggled uselessly as Black Hat dragged him down the hall by his ankle. His tear-stained paper bag fell off at some point, leaving his mutilated face in full view. He whacked his head on a threshold as he was pulled through a door, knocking him senseless for a moment. When his vision cleared, he realized that he was being lifted onto the same operating table that 2-P had been released from earlier.

“Wh-what’s going on?” he asked anxiously. “Aren’t we going to f-fuse?”

Black Hat only smiled. His pointy teeth gleamed in the low fluorescent light.

“We have to get _some_ science done today,” he practically purred as he fastened the restraints around Flug. “And since you’re so determined to interfere and protect our worthless subjects, it looks like you’ll be taking their place.”

“Wait! No, you c-can’t! Don’t we n-need to fuse?!” Flug begged, thrashing in a futile attempt to get away. He knew from watching his two helpless subjects- his _children-_ struggle in the same circumstances that there was no escaping the fate that awaited him in the immediate future.

“When I’m done with you,” Black Hat leaned over him, blocking out the ceiling light so the only features Flug could see were his glowing eyes, “you’ll be _begging_ to fuse.”

Far down the hall, still huddled together on their bench, 1-S and 2-P heard the screams reverberate through the lab. 1-S’s expression was inscrutable, his eyes completely dark. 2-P just looked mournful.

“I HOPE HE’LL BE OKAY…” he fretted.

“bro, i don’t think any of us will be okay,” 1-S said bitterly.

Holding each other tightly, the boys tried to block out the noises of Flug’s anguish.

It took hours for the screaming to die down.

* * *

Gaster had never had more difficulty holding himself together. His weaker half, his so-called conscience, was rebelling at every turn. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to perform any experiments on his subjects since the secret of his duality had been revealed.

In retrospect, he should have just kept that wretched scientist locked up in the lab and forced his cooperation through other means. But Flug had been so dead set against the plan of creating artificial life that forcing a long-term fusion had seemed the most efficient way of taking Flug’s scientific knowledge for himself.

After all, anyone can ignore their conscience.

With his usual pastime of tormenting his subjects in the name of science currently an unpalatable concept, Gaster turned his attention to the incessant mechanical problems that were being reported in the Core. Evidently, the quality of workers that had been hired to maintain the machine’s operation was sadly lacking.

With that in mind, Gaster collected the relevant schematics and tools to perform a test on the Core’s main computer. As he left the Lab, his accursed conscience reminded him that he hadn’t fed his subjects yet. Doubling back and tossing a package of cookies through the beams only put him five minutes behind his rigid schedule, but the delay still chafed at his organized mind. Walking swiftly and purposefully, Gaster made the short trek through Hotland to reach the Core.

 _Whose brilliant idea was it to have the central computer perched on a walkway in the middle of a river of lava?_ Gaster grumbled to himself as he carefully navigated the precarious scaffolding. _And what idiot is responsible for the lack of safety railings in here?_

His conscience shot him the mental equivalent of a bitter glare. He ignored it.

The central computer blinked cheerfully at Gaster, mocking his bleak mood. Unfortunately, most of the flashing lights were warnings of some sort or other. Someone had gotten dangerously lax with the maintenance of the place. It wasn’t as though this machine, Gaster’s greatest achievement, was not only responsible for powering the entire Underground but could also create catastrophic consequences if it failed. No, nothing like that.

Gaster hastily unscrewed the panel that accessed the computer’s mainframe as he muttered acerbic comments under his breath. Even the wires themselves showed signs of corrosion, most likely the result of mineral buildup that could have been prevented if those maintenance fools would _do their damn jobs._

His mood souring further with every passing second, Gaster poked further into the mainframe to survey the damage. _No wonder there are so many problems here. A gentle breeze could cause this entire system could fail entirely._

Several sets of magic hands set to work at once, stripping wires and realigning sockets with swift precision. Within minutes, Gaster had undone several months’ worth of minor damage that had built up to the point of posing a serious threat. He felt his disdain for those incompetent workers build up with every patch of rust he carefully polished away.

_How dare they treat my most beautiful creation in such a careless manner? The Core is my pride and joy, my legacy, my… my baby._

_NO!_

Gaster recoiled at the force of his own thoughts. His dual nature, held in check through sheer force of will, was suddenly splintering.

 _How DARE you?_ Gaster screamed at himself. His head reeled as his two sides, both as purely and irrevocably _him_ as his own right and left hands, turned on each other with a ferocity that Gaster had never felt before.

 _Silence, you fool!_ Gaster’s other half hissed. _Your petty sentimentality is utterly pointless. Now shut up and let me work._

_This… this THING is not your child! Your children are the ones you hurt over and over in the name of “science,” and you don’t deserve to be anywhere near them!_

Gaster clutched his head, groaning in distress as his halves battled.

 _You’re not the one in charge here!_ Black Hat roared, asserting his dominance in an attempt to push Flug back down to the bottom of their subconscious. But Flug fought back with an assault of memories. The times Gaster hadn’t acted like quite such a monster, the times that his kinder side had shown through, were brought to the forefront of their shared mind.

_1-S, long before his innocence had been shattered, looking at him with stars in his eyes as Gaster began to explain the concept of mathematics._

_2-P, his desolate face lighting up as Gaster offered him the tiniest of mercy in the form of the color cube._

_Gaster spending an afternoon watching them sleep somewhat peacefully on the monitors instead of working._

_The most recent memory of all, not even one of Gaster’s, of 2-P—Papyrus—smiling at him in a way that he would never deserve, his eyes shining brightly in an attempt to comfort his confessed tormentor._

_“I FORGIVE YOU,” Papyrus said._

In an instant, Gaster had vanished. In his place, Black Hat grappled with Flug on the precarious scaffolding. Flug was shorter, comparatively frail, and had no combat skills or magic attacks to speak of, but he didn’t back down.

“You- will- _never-_ come near those children again!” Flug shouted, shoving Black Hat against the computer console.

“You pathetic weakling!” Black Hat snarled. “You think you can tell _me_ what to do?” As he spoke, a shadowy tentacle wrapped around Flug’s neck, lifting him off the ground. “I am a thousand times stronger than you!”

Leaning close to Flug’s obscured face, Black Hat hissed, “in fact, you’ve become redundant. I can finish the project without you.”

“N-never…” Flug choked, clawing at the constricting appendage with one hand. “I won’t… let you…”

Black Hat grinned widely as he watched Flug struggle. _Perhaps, once I kill him, I’ll-_

His vision went white as Flug’s other hand closed around a wrench left discarded on the computer console, and he swung it up against the side of Black Hat’s head.

Black Hat was knocked off his feet, reflexively releasing Flug as his top hat spun off the catwalk into the river of hissing magma. Flug hit the ground, coughing and gasping, but struggled to his feet.

Black Hat was recovering his bearings, just beginning to straighten up, when he felt Flug forcefully shove him. He snarled contemptuously at the feeble impact. The scrawny scientist was only strong enough to knock Black Hat back a single step, but his foot hit nothing but air.

Black Hat teetered for a split second, his face a mask of horror and fury, then he disappeared from view. An ear-piercing demonic scream trailed after him.

There was a long moment of silence. Flug waited, paralyzed, as he anticipated Black Hat pulling another trick and reappearing in an instant. As the seconds ticked by and nothing happened, Flug slowly sank to his knees next to the computer console.

It took him the better part of five minutes to recover his wits enough to straighten his bag and pull himself to his feet. It took him several minutes after that to remember how to walk, and he made his way carefully out of the Core alone.

He wanted nothing more than to curl up where he stood and sleep for a week, but he had a job to finish.

There were two children whose freedom was long overdue.


	2. Lunchplates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flug struggles to adjust to life both as an individual and as a free man. (monster)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, everyone! Thank you all for the lovely comments. I actually wrote this out weeks ago with the intention of making it at least as long as the first chapter, but I wrote it out to HERE and for the life of me could not make one more sentence appear on the page. So here's half the intended chapter, in the hopes that it will inspire me to finish the second half!

Asgore knocked softly on Flug’s closed bedroom door. A moment later, he heard Flug call a hesitant greeting. 

“Good morning, doctor,” Asgore said as he opened the door. “How are you feeling today?”

Flug was sitting on the edge of his bed, staring forlornly at his hands. Asgore had caught the man staring at his hands so frequently, he was starting to wonder if they held some interesting quality that escaped Asgore’s notice.

“I- I’m alright,” Flug said timidly. “N-no worse than usual.”

Asgore sat next to him on the bed, keeping a careful distance. Flug was so twitchy and easily startled, it was nearly impossible to believe that he could ever have had the guts to perpetrate half the crimes he had confessed to.

Then again, it was hard to believe any of the scientist’s outlandish story. This bloodstained monster with a crumpled paper bag over his head had appeared at the king’s door in the middle of the night some weeks ago, with two tiny, frightened skeleton monsters in tow.

_ Skeletons.  _ Two new skeletons, when Asgore had always thought the entire species long dead. 

Except for Gaster, of course. But now it seemed that the man had never been truly a skeleton monster at all.

Gaster’s hidden identity as a fusion had been the hardest part of the story to believe. Although he could hardly take at face value the idea that his dear friend had had any part in the atrocities Flug claimed had gone on in the lab.

Then again, sometimes he could see elements of Gaster’s personality in Flug so clearly it hurt. The reserved, somewhat bashful nature, which fell away the moment the topic turned to anything scientific, at which point his face would light up and a torrent of words would pour out, so quickly that he tripped over his own tongue in his eagerness. 

Other things, too. A trace of Gaster’s arrogance; the unspoken assumption that he was the smartest person in any given room, the tiniest hint of condescension whenever he was made to explain himself more than once.

Worse things: Gaster’s anxiety and self-doubt, which Asgore had always seen but Gaster refused to address, was prominent in Flug. Without the confidence and self-assurance that had evidently been destroyed with Gaster’s other half, Flug’s timidity bordered on neurosis.

Noticeably absent was the darkness that Asgore had seen growing behind Gaster’s eyes in recent months. Some twisted black feeling had rooted itself inside his friend, and Asgore had watched it grow but was powerless to stop it. Gaster had grown more and more distant, less and less like the kindhearted monster Asgore had once known, but Asgore had no inkling of how deeply rooted that darkness truly had been.

“Gaster?” Asgore eventually broke the silence. He realized his mistake when he heard Flug’s sharp intake of breath.

“Oh, Doctor Flug, I’m sorry,” he quickly backpedaled. “I just… I, uh…”

“N-no, it’s understandable. I was  _ him  _ for long enough that you should j-just call me… ” Flug trailed off, obviously holding back tears. His hands, which he hadn’t looked up from once yet, were shaking badly.

“No, you shouldn’t have to answer to that name anymore,” Asgore said firmly. “You have your own identity again. You can make your own decisions.”

Flug gave a tiny, breathy laugh. “I don’t even remember w-what my identity is supposed to be,” he said bitterly.

Slowly, carefully, Asgore rested one paw against the doctor’s frail shoulders. “You’ll have plenty of time to rediscover yourself at your own pace. And I’ll be here to help you.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Flug said disconsolately.

Asgore decided it was time to change the subject before the fragile doctor started crying. “The children have been asking about you,” he said. “They want to see you.”

Flug looked up, suddenly interested. “How are th-they doing? Are they adjusting well? The change in environment might have been a shock…”

“They’re doing fine,” Asgore assured him. “They’ve even begun to socialize with the other monsters who visit the castle, though it’s mostly Papyrus who does the talking.” He smiled fondly at the thought of the energetic child who tended to dominate the conversation.

“I’m g-glad,” Flug said, barely louder than a whisper.

“They want to see you,” Asgore repeated. Flug shook his head automatically.

“One- Sans and Papyrus will be better off without me,” he insisted.

“Do you really believe that?” Asgore said softly. “You’re the one who knows the most about them. You care about their welfare. And most importantly, they want you in their lives.”

Flug scoffed silently. “They have no reason to-”

“Papyrus asks about you every day,” Asgore interrupted. “He calls you ‘Dad.’” Flug flinched, but Asgore continued. “Sans is less… demonstrative, but I can see his frustration every time he asks me a question I can’t answer. He needs someone who can help him keep up with his studies.”

“I… I can’t,” Flug muttered.

“You can’t or you won’t?” Asgore asked.

“I  _ can’t!  _ After everything I did to them-”

“But it wasn’t you,” Asgore said firmly. “You told me it was this Black Hat person who did all this to them.”

“You don’t understand,” Flug said bitterly. “It wasn’t him, it was  _ us.  _ It was  _ me.  _ I have all the memories of- of committing those atrocities with my own hands, of their scared faces asking- begging me to- to stop, but I n-never…”

Asgore pulled Flug into a fuzzy embrace as he broke down in tears. The ever-present paper bag that hid the horrific scars on Flug’s face began to dampen as Flug sniffled and sobbed.

The king wanted nothing more than to gently tuck the poor doctor into bed and leave him in peace. But Asgore had raised two difficult children, and he knew that coddling him would accomplish nothing. It was time for tough love.

“Doctor Flug,” Asgore said gently, but still firmly enough that Flug would know that this was an order rather than a request. “You will join us for lunch today.”

Flug simply nodded silently.

* * *

 

Flug sat at the table next to Asgore, picking at his food. Occasionally he would glance up at Sans, who was staring at him silently across the table with dark, empty eyes. 

Asgore and Papyrus did their best to keep the mood lively. 

“Doctor Flug, do you like the spaghetti? Papyrus helped me make it,” Asgore said.

Papyrus practically jumped out of his seat with excitement. “YEAH! THE KING IS TEACHING ME ALL ABOUT COOKING AND IT’S THE GREATEST THING EVER!”

Asgore chuckled gently. “Well, it’s certainly more fun to cook with a great little helper like you!” He ruffled Papyrus’ skull with one big paw. The little skeleton’s eyes lit up with happiness.

“I TRIED TO PUT IN ALL THE SPICES TO MAKE IT EVEN MORE YUMMY!” Papyrus informed Flug excitedly. “AND SOME PARTS OF IT GOT BURNED BUT IT’S STILL GOOD! I THINK IT’S EVEN BETTER THAN WHEN YOU- I MEAN  _ HE-  _ I- I MEAN- …”

Papyrus’ wide smile faltered. “WHEN WE MADE FOOD THAT ONE TIME, I MEAN,” he corrected himself. Still, Flug flinched like he had been struck. 

Asgore opened his mouth to comment, but closed it again. Papyrus glanced at Sans, who shrugged helplessly. Flug mutely continued to stare at his food. Silence reigned, awkward and heavy with too many unspoken feelings.

“Sans,” Asgore finally said, forcing a subject change with all the effort of moving a mountain. “Why don’t you tell Doctor Flug about that physics book you were asking me about?”

“nah,” Sans mumbled. Papyrus elbowed him. “ok. so there was this chapter on thermodynamic reactions? and i didn’t get the part about radiation.”

Flug nodded slightly, slipping into teacher mode. “Th-that’s understandable. We don’t have many examples of radiation here in the Underground, s-so we never covered it in your lessons. The primary source of radiation on the surface is the sun, which provides heat energy as well as ultraviolet energy, one of the less dangerous types of radiation. Other types, which can be emitted by unstable elements, can be used to generate energy, but they often come with dangerous side effects.”

“energy? like the core?” 

“Yes, the… th-the Core…” Flug trailed off as Black Hat’s snarling face while he fell to his doom popped unbidden into his mind. Sans, who had been leaning forward and listening with rapt attention, seemed to snap out of a trance.

“oh, okay, that’s cool,” he muttered, both of them now avoiding eye contact. “thanks, i guess.”

It all felt too similar to the lessons that Gaster had given the boys along with the battery of tests and puzzles. One or the other, sometimes both, sitting across from him, all three exhausted from hours of painful experiments. Gaster draining his coffee since he hadn’t slept in six days, having long since lost the thread of the lesson, instead on a wild tangent about Euclidean geometry partially because he liked to hear himself talk and partially because  he was lonely  the subjects would be more useful to him if they knew this stuff, probably. 1-S paying close attention, his usual hateful expression fallen slack as he listened closely. 2-P, barely following the original lesson as it was, trying to balance a pen on his fingers. 

No one screaming, or pleading, or spitting venomous, impotent threats. 

It was as close to peace as the inhabitants of the Lab ever felt.

Now, though, lessons like this served only as a painful reminder of everything the children were trying to leave behind.

* * *

Flug had retreated to his room as quickly as he could after the disaster that had been lunch. He lay curled in a tight ball on his bed, staring at the wall and trying to block out the sound of Black Hat’s mocking voice in his head.

_ So, Doctor Flug, has life been better for you since you murdered your partner?  _ Black Hat hissed. _ Are you happy now, without me to protect you from all the other nightmares under your bed?  _

_ You can’t do this on your own. You’re NOTHING without me. What do you expect to happen now? The king will pardon your crimes? 1-S and 2-P will see you as their hero instead of your tormentor?  _

Flug pressed the pillow tightly against his ears, but he couldn’t silence the voice inside his head.

_ You need me. You’ve always needed me. My power, my conviction, to do what needs to be done. Admit it, Flug, there’s a part of you that’s disappointed, isn’t there? You wanted to see this project through to the end. All that suffering will have been for naught if you never reach your goal. And now, you never will. You’ll have to live with the fact that everything we’ve done has turned into  _ **_nothing._ **

**_You’re nothing._ **

The lightest of knocks at the door made Flug twitch in surprise. A pause, then the knock came again. And again.

“Y-yes?” he finally said when it became clear that whoever was knocking wasn’t about to go away.

He was expecting Asgore, but was surprised to see Papyrus slip into the room and close the door behind him. Flug reflexively shrank back against the wall, even though the small skeleton was perhaps the last person in the Underground who would ever attack him.

“HELLO,” Papyrus said quietly. “ARE YOU SAD?”

Flug blinked at him a few times before responding. “I-I’m okay.”

“WHEN MY BROTHER IS SAD, I ALWAYS GIVE HIM HUGS,” Papyrus said, as though Flug hadn’t claimed the complete opposite. “WOULD YOU LIKE A HUG?”

When Flug didn’t respond, Papyrus clambered up onto the bed anyway. Flug froze, sitting perfectly still as Papyrus carefully wrapped his skeletal arms around Flug’s thin frame. They sat in silence for a long moment.

“DO YOU FEEL BETTER NOW?” Papyrus asked as he pulled away.

“M-much better, thanks,” Flug lied. 

He knew the importance of what Papyrus had just done. Not only had he breached the barrier of personal space that by all reckoning should be the size of a planet, he had offered the only form of comfort he was capable of giving. The boys had spent their entire lives in unspeakable conditions, physical contact the only tool at their disposal to keep each other from falling apart. 

A hug was such a small gesture, yet it was the only way Papyrus knew how to express love. And he offered it to Flug freely, even though the doctor had never done anything to deserve such a kindness.

And he never would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAaaay, let's try to clarify any points of confusion before I get questions about it.   
> First of all: this is a crack fusion fic, the two fandoms are not meant to fit seamlessly together, nor did I honestly try very hard to do so.  
> So:  
> 1) Flug is not a human, but a humanoid monster. Black Hat is a demon/monster.  
> 2) The skelebros are full-blooded skeletons, as is Gaster when the two are fused. Don't ask how or why.  
> 3) Asgore retains his full memories of Gaster, as does Flug remember Black Hat. If anyone knew Black Hat before the fusion, they would have forgotten him.
> 
> Any further questions should be directed to my secretary @HappyFazzbearPonies2

**Author's Note:**

> If, for some bizarre reason, anyone finds this enjoyable, I'm open to returning to this universe and adding some more one-shots- sequels, prequels, whatevs you want.


End file.
